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THIS PAGE contains an assortment of websites, books, films, products and other assorted Manchester-related stuff you may be interested in. Please e-mail me if you have anything to recommend...
Longsight Memories by EWM reader David Boardman, in Canada. He says the website is: "devoted to the history of Longsight during the period 1930 to the late 1960s. This is intended to be a web site about the community for the people who lived there during that period. It is also a place for them to add their own memories and pictures. All contributions are welcome and essential if this is to give an accurate and vivid picture of our community." David has done a great job, and will be adding lots of new stuff regularly. There ought to be one of these for every community in & around Manchester, so come on webmasters, follow David Boardman's example! Rebuilding Manchester by Euan Kellie has burgeoned into a major source of pictures and other information about the rebuilding of Manchester after the IRA bomb attack on the 15th of June 1996. The periods before, during (see picture above!) and after the bomb are documented, right up to the present, in fact. There are many interesting old photos and quite a few ones taken on Euan's new Canon digital camera, so the information is bang up to date. So drop in and check out how they're "Rebuilding Manchester" for the 21st century, and don't forget to sign the guest book! Manchester Forum has an events noticeboard and an online version of the Manchester Civic Society magazine. It's packed with interesting and controversial views and opinions put forward by those "Middle Class ***ers" who keep objecting to some of Manchester City Council's development plans. (May still be temporarily offline) Phenomena Online is run by Glossop's Debbie Fair, and features a unique "skywatch" over the Longdendale Valley, 12 miles east of Manchester, said to be a UK hotspot for UFO's and other paranormal activity.
Dominica Online by expat Mancunian Steve McCabe is a shining example of a successful online promotion of a place. Many tourists from the US and other countries have been attracted to this tiny Caribbean island after seeing Steve's website, which is supported by advertising from the local tourist industry. In2net In2active is a free business index directory site put together by enterprising Urmston lad Chris Davies. It's concise, comprehensive, clearly designed and quick to load, as there are no graphics. Chris has devised an elaborate database system using scripting. He inputs new URLs and the system does the rest. The Infotec feature appears in Friday's MEN, and is compulsory reading for those who want to keep up to date with what's happening in the local IT world. Freelance journalist David Gordon also publishes Infotec on the Internet. Back issues are there if you need them. Some very interesting stories every week. Check it out. The Museum of Science and Technology in Manchester (picture) has a lively and attractive website, with optional Shockwave, plus VRML, QTVR panoramas, and Real Audio.The Shockwave interactive experiments are brilliant, but I'd like more and better quality still photographs. Check out how the Commonwealth Games Pool is progressing by viewing the Poolcam, run by the Manchester Institute for Information Delivery Manchester is an amazing website by Mitsuharu Matsuoka all about Manchester. Find out what's happening at G-MEX at www.g-mex.co.uk . There's a comprehensive list of coming events and a gallery of photos of this building, which in its earlier incarnation was Central Station. Region-Chemnitz, is a comprehensive and well-presented website about Manchester's twin city of Chemnitz and surrounding region. I went there summer 1998 and visited the enterprising Marko Maethe, author of Region-Chemnitz. Please let me know about any other Manchester twin city websites. West Yorkshire Photographs is website started recently by Yorkshire resident Martin Bryant. Like me, he's documenting his equally fascinating and varied local area in pictures. Chorlton Web comes, not surprisingly from Chorlton. If you can recommend any other community websites, please let me know. The Net Curtain is a general interest webzine from Manchester, with some articles on a local theme. Mad For It, (above left) is an animated website featuring Manchester, aimed at young people, with animated cartoon characters. The animated cartoon graphics are brilliant, though they took a while to download and only played for a few seconds. More use could be made of Shockwave for the main listings content. This EU-funded project has great potential. Local council websites include Manchester and Salford - to find others just put .gov.uk on the end of the town or district name. The Local Studies Unit at Manchester Central Reference Library has old pictures of Manchester Oldham has an interesting and easily navigable website, with interesting news pages and links to other websites from this 150 year old borough 7 miles north east of Manchester. San Francisco's Salon Magazine has an interesting and opinionated article about the Turner prize winning Chris Ofili (he of the camel dung fame. Gorton Monastery showcases this unique church and religious centre, now a world heritage site. The Northern Quarter is also online - click here for news from central Manchester's answer to Paris's Left Bank.
I'LL START by mentioning some very interesting local interest books, some of which you can purchase now in the Manchester Online store. Please go to the store to check availability, or e-mail me.
Manchester Faces and Places has pictures taken from the magazine of the same name, which was published around 100 years ago. Cliff Hayes provides comments on the pictures, which include The Boat House, Worsley, and the long since disappeared All Saints Church and St Peters Church. Images of Greater Manchester (Manchester Evening News) contains an absorbing and varied selection of newspaper-type photos of the Manchester area from the 19th century to the present. The reproduction quality is very high, and there are both colour and black and white photos. Subjects includethe 1996 bomb damage, wartime, royal visits and portraits of personalities from sport, entertainment and politics. Recollections of Salford has articles written by members and friends of the Salford Local History Society. It's a nostalgic journey into the past from the point of view of present day writers.
The Lancashire Weather Book by Len Markham documents floodings, snowstorms and other examples of extreme weather in Lancashire from the 17th century to the present day. There are are lots of great photos (black and white only) In Lancashire Magic and Mystery, by Kenneth Fields, find out about the spooker side of the county famous for Pendle witches. Ancient burial mounds, stone circles, ghosts and the best places to view UFO's are some of the topics dealt with. A Cheshire Christmas brings alive the Yuletide traditions of the ancient county to the south of Manchester. Gawsworth Hall, Chester Cathedral and Lyme Park are some of the places mentioned. The Villages of Manchester by another well-known local history author Chris Makepiece, features a selection of fascinating black and white postcards from many years ago of familiar locations throughout the city of Manchester.. I particularly like the hand-tinted picture Slade Lane and Stockport Rd junction. Other subjects include Philips Park, the Assizes Court, All Saints Church ( both lost through WW2 bomb damage), Clayton Hall, and the Whit Walks Harpurhey.
The City Life Guide to Manchester and North West England contains detailed and comprehensive listings of the major local attractions. Great colour photos, maps, and the local knowledge of the writers at City Life make this book indispensible The City Life Restaurant, Cafe Bar and Pub Guide to Greater Manchester has been revised for 1999. There are new sections on country pubs and coffee bars. Each entry has its own colour photo and a commentary. The foreward is by radio DJ Mark Radcliffe and the intro by City Life's Luke Bainbridge. A special centre spread on the Trafford Centre makes this guide pretty much bang up to date. The following books may not be in the Manchester Online shop, but please check, as new titles are being added quite often. Gorton is part of the "Britain in Old Photographs" series and is packed with fascinating photos and some maps of this east Manchester district rich in history. It was written by Jill Cronin and Frank Rhodes. They've also produced other books: Denton Haughton in Old Photographs, Droylsden and Audenshaw, Denton Voices and Belle Vue (available Easter 1999). You can order the books direct from the authors: Jill Cronin telephone 0161 336 3989. Postal address: 4 Romford Ave, Denton M34 3EJ Frank Rhodes telephone: 0161 320 6857. Postal address: 3 Maple Ave Denton M34 3QU The Golden Years of British Trams is a fantastic collection of pictures from the 30's and 50's documenting cities all over Britain, including a number of pictures of Manchester. The locations are barely recognisable - this is truly a glimpse into a world long gone. Manchester - A Celebration contains a wealth of stunning photos of Manchester in the 1980's, many by my school classmate Jan Chlebik, one of Manchester's best known and most talented photographers. Even during the last 10 years, many of the locations have changed, particularly Castlefield. For a definitive guide to the buildings of city centre Manchester, you can do no better than the pocket-sized Guide Across Manchester, by Philip Atkins. The informative text is supplemented by attractive line drawings and historic maps. Victorian Manchester and Salford is an authoritative book featuring local Victorian buildings, with stark monochrome photos by Ian Beesley, and erudite comments by Peter de Figueiredo.
Salford, by Edward Gray is a unique record of a city now gone. It's one of the Britain in Old Photographs Series, and has many fascinating images of late 19th and mid-20th century Salford. The photos provide a precious document of districts damaged by the blitz and finally wiped from the map by post-war development. Photographic Memories of North-West England, from the Francis Frith Collection includes some interesting pictures of Manchester, including Piccadilly. I don't like the sepia-toning of the pictures though. Please contact if you have a recommendation or if you'd like me to review a book.
Coronation St is the most famous Manchester -based tv programme. The Royle Family (see the website by Debbie Fair) starring Caroline Ahern is a recent success, as is her domestic comedy Mrs Merton and Malcolm, set in sleepy Heaton Norris. Many tv dramas have been filmed in Manchester during the nineties, including BBC's City Central, and Channel 4's Queer as Folk, but my favourite is the powerful and violent Prime Suspect 5 starring Helen Mirren. Locations include parts of Collyhurst, Hathersage Road Baths and the derelict Mayfield Station. Chicanery Moon is a project by my filmmaker friend Stephen Gibbons, who's from Oldham. He's got big-name Hollywood backers, and who knows, it could become a blockbuster. You saw it first here. Two of my all time favrourite films were made in Manchester 40 years ago. A Taste of Honey, (1961) starring Rita Tushingham and Dora Bryan is based on the tragi-comedy by Shelagh Delaney. It has a wonderful and touching story, with some fascinating shots of Stockport, Salford, Blackpool and the Manchester Ship Canal. The scene on the pier in Blackpool was shot at the exact spot where I had my photo taken as a child. Hell is a City (1959) directed by Val Guest, starring Stanley Baker, Donald Pleasance, and Billie Whitelaw is a fast-moving crime thriller in late-fifties style. Spotting the locations is fun - the alleyway and pub off Corporation St - demolished 10 years later to make way for the Arndale Centre, the chase scene near Whitworth St ending on the Refuge (Palace Hotel) roof, and the night scenes around Piccadilly, with the view from a police car driving from London Rd, round Piccadilly and down Market Street. You won't find Hell is a City in the video shop. In fact it's not even listed in film guides, I'm not sure why, because it's a great film. The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue (1973) has achieved a kind of cult status among certain Mancunian film buffs, but it must qualify as one of the worst films ever made. Despite the title, Manchester features only in the first ten minutes - the rest was filmed in the Lake District. It's a third rate Night of the Living Dead made on a shoestring budget. If there any items you'd like to tell me about, please contact
Manchester Firsts is an excellent leaflet on sale at the Visitor Information Centre, listing 80 examples of "firsts" with Manchester connections: Where can you find the first purpose-built industrial estate? Who was the first vegetarian MP? Who developed atomic theory and was the first to describe colour blindness? Find out in Manchester Firsts. It's written by Blue Badge Guide Jonathan Schofield and packs in a lot of information for just 80p. The Stationery Office (formerly HMSO) on Albert Square also has some interesting items of local interest: the Manchester version of Monopoly and the A-Z of Manchester on CD-ROM (£39.95, Windows only). There's an excellent local book section and of course, the complete range of the superb Ordnance Survey Maps, including the Manchester area, covered by Landranger map 105. Another map I can heartily recommend is the one of Manchester City Centre by Andrew Taylor. Items such as pubs, statues and office blocks are named. It's neat - and it was done on paper, not on a computer - I like it If you're not in Manchester, you can of course go to the Manchester Online shop, where you can buy a range of books and products, including the Eyewitness in Manchester and Eric Cantona screensavers. Please e-mail me for more information, if there's a product you can recommend, or if you'd like me to do a review. |
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EBSITES...
For the definitive list of Manchester websites, go to Martin Sellers'
OOKS
ON A MANCHESTER THEME ARE AVAILABLE IN GREATER VARIETY THAN EVER BEFORE,
with new ones coming out all the time - Here are a few of my favourites.
Look out for one called EYEWITNESS IN MANCHESTER- appearing in
a bookshop near you hopefully some time soon.
Manchester
Yesterday and Today (right) by noted
local author Cliff Hayes places old and new scenes side by side.
Many are from exactly the same viewpoint. The photos are all in black
and white. Ironically, some of the pre-June 15th "today" photos
from around the Arndale Centre have become "yesterday".
Street
Photographs by Shirley Baker is a collection of mostly
black and white photos taken on the streets of inner city Manchester and
Salford during the 60's slum clearance. The smiling faces of the children
shine through the gloom. 
ILM
AND TV DRAMAS ARE BEING MADE ALL THE TIME IN MANCHESTER, and often there
seem to be film crews on every corner..
RODUCTS
ON A MANCHESTER THEME are on sale in a number of shops, including
the Visitor Information Centre, in the Town Hall Extension.
They've got mugs, postcards, football scarves, framed pictures, books,
souvenirs, much much more. 